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For centuries, humans have been fascinated by giant squids, among the largest—and most elusive—living invertebrate species. The Museum's giant squid (Architeuthis kirkii) specimen is one of few housed in a museum in North America, says Curator Neil H. Landman, who studies fossil (and living) invertebrates in the Division of Paleontology.

After a painstaking, yearlong process of restoration, the spectacular dioramas in the Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals are back to doing what they were always meant to do: transporting visitors to beautiful vistas as far away as Yellowstone or Alaska.

In the course of his work studying the reptiles and amphibians of Madagascar, Associate Curator Christopher J. Raxworthy often refers to a classic 19th-century herpetological text: Erpétologie générale, by André-Marie-Constant Duméril, of the Paris Museum of Natural History.

An early and enthusiastic nature photographer—the first Kodak camera came to market only in 1888—eminent Museum ornithologist Frank M. Chapman owned an assortment of cameras, including the 5x7 Graflex original now on display in the reopened Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall.

In this post, the fifth in a series, we explore a video-series now on amnh.tv and on the Museum's YouTube channel, about the making of the earliest habitat dioramas—whose vivid realism was meant to inspire environmental awareness.